CIECA (Collision Industry Electronic Commerce Association) announced today that the organization completed the 2020R2 Release of the CIECA Standards for the collision repair industry. The release includes new Calibration Standards developed by CIECA’s Calibration Committee and an enhancement to CIECA’s Scanning Standards.
“CIECA’s mission is the exchange of electronic data within the collision repair industry,” said Darrell Amberson, chairman of CIECA’s Calibration Committee and president of operations at LaMettry’s Collision. “The Calibration Committee worked diligently to develop and maintain message standards and codes for the industry in regard to the calibration process and properly documenting all of the procedures.”
Formed in January 2019, CIECA’s Calibration Committee represents all segments of the collision repair industry. This includes repairers, insurers, information providers, OEMs, parts providers, car rental companies, recyclers, financial services, glass companies, vendors of scan and calibration tools, and calibration service providers.
During the weekly meetings, led by CIECA’s former project coordinator, Charley Quirt, the committee identified the business needs of each industry segment.
“By creating industry standards for calibration, it will enable the data to be shared electronically with everyone involved in the process,” said Quirt. “Consumers demand an assurance of vehicle safety and function, and setting standards is the first step toward this goal.’’
Gene Lopez, a member of the Calibration Committee and director of development and training at Seidner’s Collision Centers, said committee participants also drafted a document with details on the calibration process. This includes information from the initial pre-scan to the disassembly of the damaged vehicle, blueprinting, discovering Diagnostics Trouble Codes (DTCs), vehicle repair, the post-scan process and calibration functions.
“By having all of the industry segments come together on the committee calls each week, it helped us identify a broad range of possible ‘what if’ scenarios in terms of the documentation that may be required or expected pertaining to the repair,” said Amberson.
Similar to other CIECA committees, Calibration Committee participants shared information relevant to their industry segment and worked together to reach a consensus.
Throughout the discussions, the committee collaborated with CIECA’s Vehicle Damage & Imaging and Repair Order committees to ensure the standards were created for all industry segments. “It was a great, unified effort to create great universal standards,” said Quirt.
The committee also referenced other industry working groups such as the Collision Industry Conference (CIC) Definitions Committee, which maintains the CIC Wiki, a glossary of terms used in the collision repair industry in the United States.
“CIECA’s Calibration Committee continuously identified terms related to the calibration process, which were then provided to CIC to add to the Wiki to help drive consistent communication across the industry,” said Chuck Olsen, senior vice president of Automotive Technology Solutions for AirPro Diagnostics and also a member of CIECA’s Calibration Committee.
“It was a pleasure to work with everyone and what ‘we’ created as a committee and industry is and will be VERY important to the collision, calibration, glass and insurance industries for many years,” said Frank Terlep, committee participant and co-founder of Auto Techcelerators.
Bob Scharaga, president of All Star Glass, agreed. “My team was involved in these very informative conference calls that consisted of a great group of people who wanted to put safety first for our customers,” he said.
CIECA’s Architecture Committee publishes updated collision industry standards twice a year.
For more information about the 2020R2 Release, contact Paulette Reed, CIECA’s technical project manager/business analyst: [email protected].
